Monday, May 13, 2024

New Hub in Anacostia Will Respond to Community Needs and Connect Residents to Government Services

(Washington, DC) – Today, Mayor Muriel Bowser opened the District’s second Safe Commercial Corridor Hub in the Anacostia neighborhood of Ward 8, following the February opening of the first hub in Chinatown. The Safe Commercial Corridor Hubs connect residents to a range of city services, with a specific focus on working across government to keep corridors safe and clean. The hubs are staffed by outreach teams from multiple community relations, public safety, human services, and behavioral health agencies that are able to respond in real-time to challenges in the community. 
 
“These hubs are where residents can walk in and get help from multiple DC Government agencies – they are focal points for community engagement,” said Mayor Bowser. “I want to thank all the teams at our first hub that have been problem-solvers and who continue to make that site work for the community. And I also want to thank the teams who will be at this site, catering to the specific needs of our community here.”
 
The Anacostia Safe Commercial Corridor Hub is located at 2300 Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue SE and will be open for residents to walk in for services from Monday through Friday, 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. The hub will be staffed with representatives from the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD), the Mayor’s Office of Community Relations and Services (MOCRS), the Department of Behavioral Health (DBH), and the Mayor’s Office of Community Affairs (MOCA). The Department of Employment Services (DOES) will also be represented at the hub until the agency moves into their permanent offices at 2201 Shannon Place SE later this spring. 
 
The Anacostia Safe Commercial Corridor Hub is located along a corridor that is home to multiple DC Government agencies, including the Department of Housing and Community Development (DHCD), the Department of Human Services (DHS), the Mayor’s Office of Returning Citizens Affairs (MORCA), DC Health, the Department of For-Hire Vehicles (DFHV), ServeDC, the Mayor’s Office on African American Affairs, the Mayor’s Office of Religious Affairs, and the Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services (DYRS) Achievement Center, which is open to all District youth and offers diverse programming, resources, and wraparound supports to help young people and their families.
 
The Safe Commercial Corridor Hubs provide DC Government teams with more visibility in the community, strengthen partnerships with community stakeholders, and increase patrol officer presence and availability in communities by providing them a place to write reports and take care of other administrative tasks in the neighborhoods they serve. Data collected from the first hub in Chinatown shows:

• The hub has already supported residents with at least 112 referrals to DBH as well as 99 referrals to DHS. 

• Violent crime within 1,000 feet of the Chinatown Hub has gone down 78% since it opened. 

This latest investment in the Anacostia community comes on the heels of the completion of the MLK Gateway project in historic Anacostia, which includes the new DHCD headquarters, with space for the agency’s new Housing Resource Center, and expanded retail and office space. Last year, Mayor Bowser also established the Anacostia Arts and Culture District, providing beautification and streetscape enhancements to the area, support for local cultural institutions, and programs and initiatives that support local artists by creating platforms that showcase their work.Monday, May 13, 2024